Thursday morning, I had to get up at seven to get into uni for the Goro Nickel project work. Man did I feel seedy or what? I caught a train to uni and I was dozing as I normally do, and I closed my eyes at Sydenham station. I opened them as people were leaving the train at Redfern, and I quickly bolted out the door. Oh boy.
I got into the department and the tradies said good morning and they could tell I had been out LOL In any case, I spent most of my day watching them do their cable work and also the electrical testing on the cables. I lugged down the computer and data logging gear from the lab and set it up so we could measure the temperatures inside the cable due to the resin curing process to see how it would affect certain things. It got pretty hot, peaking at about 130°C inside.
They did some electrical testing also, and I got to see some pretty cool things with high voltage. As I kind of mentioned previously, as you bump up high voltages, you get humming noises and arcs from the electricity to the closest ground point. Last time they only managed to clock around the 52kv mark or so because the cables had not been terminated/insulated enough to withstand higher. This time, they had prepared the terminations for it. The test began and went up, up, up, and it hit the max that this particular transformer could pump out which was 72kv, and you are supposed to hold it for fifteeen minutes at that level to see if there is any degeneration and breakdown. It didn't hold.
Having seen some arcs before at the lower voltages, at the higher voltage was much more impressive. At the lower voltages, when the electricity arcs it looks just like lightning. At the higher voltages, you start to get some really cool looking plasma and ionisation. It's not too good for your eyes actually because of the UV that is generated, but if you're not looking at it a lot, it is ok, kind of like staring into the sun LOL. What happened was that the open terminus end of the cable being tested had so much charge in it (72 000v is a lot) that it was ionising the air. The ionisation then provided a tracking path for the electricity to keep ionising towards the closest grounding back along the cable. While you couldn't see this initial ionisation, you could hear the little cracking sounds before the big whoosh and crack when it fully went. The length of the arc was about fifty centimeters and the whole electric white/blue lightning-like arc whipped across, but what made it more awesome was it had a sheath of orange and purple as the voltage turned the air around the arc into plasma. So cool...... LOL
Unfortunately, this arc actually blew out the transformer LOL. But it had done its job in breaking down the joint so it could be "thumped". Thumping is where they pulse electricity in high energy arcs to deliberately increase the visible damage from the joint where it failed. It is done as a diagnostic tool to identify where/what the fault was. Thumping is simply a charge, discharge, charge, discharge, but each cycle increases in power. It starts off with a small pop, pop, pop, pop, crack, crack, Crack, Crack, CRACK, Bang BANG, and so on. By the time they stopped thumping the first cable, it was close to a rifle shot in loudness, and having shot rifles, I know what they sound like. Enough to cause industrial deafness if you didn't have protection and had to do it repeatedly.
They then electrically tested the second joint, and took it up to 100kv, but this time they added some shielding on it to increase the tracking path so that it would not arc. It did work, and they took the joint up to 100kv without fault, indicating that the joint had been very well made.
We had a meeting afterwards to discuss the direction of how things were going, and since there has been some new revelations in regards to the project, they are now considering sending someone from the university as an observer to the site in New Caledonia to oversee some of the preparation and testing conditions. Depending on the timing, I might be the one sent if they decided to do that. I was told it would take a week out of my life and I would never get it back since it was a full days travel there and a day back, and I would probably spend two or three days there. I don't think that is too big a deal for me, free trip to New Caledonia~! But, the down side is, I would not be doing touristy things but instead visiting a mining site which apparently is the size of the Brisbane CBD, and that is pretty huge.....
At the end of the day though, I went and had some dinner with friends in the city. We met at Town Hall steps and wandered into Jimmy's Recipe in the Galleries Victoria. They claim to have the best laksa in Sydney. I having never had laksa before, went with a seafood laksa. It wasn't as hot (chilli/curry) hot as I thought it would be, and while it had coconut milk as a base, it was also not as rich as I thought it could have been, so digestively it was fine. The laksa was ok. I didn't think it was particularly special though some other friends of mine obviously think it is. It was good enough, and I would probably have it again if I felt like it in the future somewhere.
Post dinner, we wandered some more into Chinatown and had some drinks at the Golden Palace hote in Dixon Street, then onto Maccas for a second dinner for some, I didn't have any, before going home on the train. While it wasn't that long a day, since I had little sleep in two days I was pretty knackered. I did sleep well last night but I am still feeling decidedly tired a litte. A nice day at home today for me ^_^
I got into the department and the tradies said good morning and they could tell I had been out LOL In any case, I spent most of my day watching them do their cable work and also the electrical testing on the cables. I lugged down the computer and data logging gear from the lab and set it up so we could measure the temperatures inside the cable due to the resin curing process to see how it would affect certain things. It got pretty hot, peaking at about 130°C inside.
They did some electrical testing also, and I got to see some pretty cool things with high voltage. As I kind of mentioned previously, as you bump up high voltages, you get humming noises and arcs from the electricity to the closest ground point. Last time they only managed to clock around the 52kv mark or so because the cables had not been terminated/insulated enough to withstand higher. This time, they had prepared the terminations for it. The test began and went up, up, up, and it hit the max that this particular transformer could pump out which was 72kv, and you are supposed to hold it for fifteeen minutes at that level to see if there is any degeneration and breakdown. It didn't hold.
Having seen some arcs before at the lower voltages, at the higher voltage was much more impressive. At the lower voltages, when the electricity arcs it looks just like lightning. At the higher voltages, you start to get some really cool looking plasma and ionisation. It's not too good for your eyes actually because of the UV that is generated, but if you're not looking at it a lot, it is ok, kind of like staring into the sun LOL. What happened was that the open terminus end of the cable being tested had so much charge in it (72 000v is a lot) that it was ionising the air. The ionisation then provided a tracking path for the electricity to keep ionising towards the closest grounding back along the cable. While you couldn't see this initial ionisation, you could hear the little cracking sounds before the big whoosh and crack when it fully went. The length of the arc was about fifty centimeters and the whole electric white/blue lightning-like arc whipped across, but what made it more awesome was it had a sheath of orange and purple as the voltage turned the air around the arc into plasma. So cool...... LOL
Unfortunately, this arc actually blew out the transformer LOL. But it had done its job in breaking down the joint so it could be "thumped". Thumping is where they pulse electricity in high energy arcs to deliberately increase the visible damage from the joint where it failed. It is done as a diagnostic tool to identify where/what the fault was. Thumping is simply a charge, discharge, charge, discharge, but each cycle increases in power. It starts off with a small pop, pop, pop, pop, crack, crack, Crack, Crack, CRACK, Bang BANG, and so on. By the time they stopped thumping the first cable, it was close to a rifle shot in loudness, and having shot rifles, I know what they sound like. Enough to cause industrial deafness if you didn't have protection and had to do it repeatedly.
They then electrically tested the second joint, and took it up to 100kv, but this time they added some shielding on it to increase the tracking path so that it would not arc. It did work, and they took the joint up to 100kv without fault, indicating that the joint had been very well made.
We had a meeting afterwards to discuss the direction of how things were going, and since there has been some new revelations in regards to the project, they are now considering sending someone from the university as an observer to the site in New Caledonia to oversee some of the preparation and testing conditions. Depending on the timing, I might be the one sent if they decided to do that. I was told it would take a week out of my life and I would never get it back since it was a full days travel there and a day back, and I would probably spend two or three days there. I don't think that is too big a deal for me, free trip to New Caledonia~! But, the down side is, I would not be doing touristy things but instead visiting a mining site which apparently is the size of the Brisbane CBD, and that is pretty huge.....
At the end of the day though, I went and had some dinner with friends in the city. We met at Town Hall steps and wandered into Jimmy's Recipe in the Galleries Victoria. They claim to have the best laksa in Sydney. I having never had laksa before, went with a seafood laksa. It wasn't as hot (chilli/curry) hot as I thought it would be, and while it had coconut milk as a base, it was also not as rich as I thought it could have been, so digestively it was fine. The laksa was ok. I didn't think it was particularly special though some other friends of mine obviously think it is. It was good enough, and I would probably have it again if I felt like it in the future somewhere.
Post dinner, we wandered some more into Chinatown and had some drinks at the Golden Palace hote in Dixon Street, then onto Maccas for a second dinner for some, I didn't have any, before going home on the train. While it wasn't that long a day, since I had little sleep in two days I was pretty knackered. I did sleep well last night but I am still feeling decidedly tired a litte. A nice day at home today for me ^_^
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